The thin red line

COUNTLESS hammers and sickles are still daubed on the crumbling colonial façades of what used to be Calcutta, now named Kolkata. And when the state of which it is capital, West Bengal, goes to the polls on May 10th, in the last stage of India's protracted national election, the parties of the Communist-dominated government seem sure to trounce the opposition. The state has enjoyed a baffling political continuity that has survived relentless economic stagnation. But even here, the reformist wind that has transformed parts of India is blowing hard. The Communists are in the throes of a makeover.